News

The economic case for the EU-US trade deal is ‘deeply flawed’, leading researchers on the deal have said as negotiations begin in Brussels today.

Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed that the deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bring £99 billion a year to the EU, giving an average family of four in the UK an extra £454 per year.

But researchers Dr Gabriel Siles-Brügge from the University of Manchester and Dr Ferdi De Ville from Ghent University in Belgium say the analysis on which the claims are based is misleading.

The World Development Movement has today launched a new interactive, online documentary exploring UK banks' financing of the Indonesian coal mining boom.

A guided walking tour around Edinburgh’s financial districts this autumn (26 September-26 October) will reveal the hidden story of UK banks, pension funds and hedge funds fuelling climate change by investing in fossil fuel companies and dirty energy projects around the world.

Campaigners set up a ‘Carbon Bubbles champagne bar’ outside of HSBC’s AGM to highlight the bank’s role in financing dirty energy projects.

Barclays, which announced an end to its speculation on food on Tuesday, made up to an estimated £278 million from the trade in 2012. The figure brings the bank’s total revenue from food speculation from 2010 to 2012 to an estimated three quarters of a billion pounds.

Campaigners have filed a complaint against British coal miner GCM Resources over a controversial open-pit coal mine in Bangladesh, ahead of the company’s AGM in London today. 

A Bangladeshi human rights worker has written an open letter to Bob Geldof ahead of a meeting tomorrow between the rock star and the UK international development secretary, Justine Greening, telling him that UK aid money is promoting sweatshops in Bangladesh.

A costumed Lady Luck and a croupier in black tie, with a roulette wheel and giant playing cards, protested in front of the Tory party conference in Birmingham this morning, calling on George Osborne to stop bankers driving up food prices through financial speculation.

Yesterday the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) adopted its report on the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). This piece of legislation is critical to achieve stronger regulation of commodity derivative markets and limit harmful financial speculation on food. 

NGOs welcomed the introduction of mandatory limits on speculation but warn that a number of loopholes must be fixed to make the proposed rules effective. 

Deborah Doane, director of anti-poverty group the World Development Movement, said today that the UK government’s aid spending inquiry should scrutinise the growing private sector cash-in on development aid.